TQ

Drawing from West Coast hip-hop pioneers 2Pac and Ice-T alongside the timeless soul of Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin, Compton native Terence Quaites—better known as TQ—built a late-’90s run of chart successes around a style he termed “Reality R&B.” Born in Compton, California in 1976, the singer spent his teenage years as one quarter of the B-Boy outfit Coming of Age, whose debut single “Coming Home to Love” climbed into the Billboard Top 30 before the group split in 1995. Returning three years afterward as a solo act, he blended gritty storytelling with smooth, soulful melodies to score major U.S. and European breakthroughs via the singles “Westside” and “Bye Bye Baby,” both featured on his debut album They Never Saw Me Coming. Subsequent releases The Second Coming in 2000 and Listen in 2004 registered softer commercial impact, yet TQ maintained a steady output through the rest of the decade with Gemini in 2007, Paradise in 2008, and Kind of Blue in 2010, while high-profile team-ups with Lil Wayne, German pop star Sarah Connor, and Czech composer Jan Hammer sustained his visibility. He ventured into acting in 2006, taking parts in Richard III and The Devil’s Grind, and staged a U.K. return in 2011 with the duet “Uh Oh” alongside urban songstress Danielle Senior.